Open Writing

Tom and I had been going out for a few months. I met him at Korma Mills, where we both worked in the warehouse. He worked in the section that handled boy's shirts and shorts and men's work trousers. I was officially office staff, but was situated down in the warehouse, where I was the filing clerk. This was a very boring job, and there is nothing in the world that would voluntarily make me take on a filing job again. Fortunately, for entertainment, I could glance to the left and watch Tom, busily working not far away.

I had taken him home to meet my parents, sister, grandfather and cats. I broached the subject one day, 'When are you taking me home to meet your mother?'

This immediately sent him into defence mode. Taking me to meet his mother seemed a problem for him, and I wondered why.

'One day, not just yet,' he'd put me off.

'Don't you think I'm good enough to meet your mother?' I was getting angry.

'Don't be stupid, it's nothing like that.'

'Well, it must be something.'

'I haven't told my mother about us,' he said.

'What?' I just stared at him in amazement. We'd been going out at least twice a week for ages, well months anyway, and he hadn't even mentioned me? I could see there was some big problem here, and I wasn't sure I was up to facing it.

I thought of the numerous times we parked just down from my house and talked and necked for at least a couple of hours, after coming home from the pictures. Sometimes he didn't get home until well after midnight. This was OK with my mother, she could look out the window, and she'd know where I was. I wouldn't dare disobey her. I wondered where on earth his mother thought he'd been when he came home so late.

'Where does your mother think you are now?' I asked. 'She can't be stupid.'

'Well, I suppose she knows something's going on. She usually says things like, '"Be late home again tonight, I suppose?"'

'And what do you say to her?'

'I usually say, "Could be, don't wait up for me".'

'And does she?'

'Well, she goes to bed, but she's listening for my key in the door, and always calls out, "Is that you, Tom?"'

'What do you say to that?'

'Usually, who else do you think it would be.''

This sounded peculiar to me, and I started to worry whether he was secretive by nature, or whether she had she caused it. Would this be a problem in our marriage? It had never occurred to me that we wouldn't marry. Now I started to have doubts. There seemed to be so many obstacles in the way. Now his mother looked like being another one. My mother was a problem, but in a different way. At least she'd made him welcome.

'I think it's time I met your mother. How about asking me to tea next Sunday?'

He looked stunned. 'All right,' he said, 'I hope you know what you're doing?'

I started to wonder whether his mother was like something out of Jane Eyre, locked in a room, insane and chained up like a rabid animal.

I've always had a vivid imagination. I couldn't imagine what could be wrong. Perhaps she was like my own mother, used to running our lives. But he is thirty-two. Surely she would make me welcome, surely she would like him to marry somebody?

On Sunday, I put on a good frock, cardigan, shoes and stockings and waited to be picked up. He was late. He was never late.

He arrived about twenty minutes later, looking edgy. I started to feel nervous myself. I was tempted to say I wasn't going. I knew he'd been living alone with his mother and an aunt, until the aunt died. He'd never known his father, as his parents had separated when he was a baby. The house they were living in was a big old villa, in Campbell Road, not far from the Royal Oak roundabout in Onehunga.

He parked the little green Ford Prefect in the side street, and we went in by the back gate. The section seemed to me to be enormous; it was a double section, with a hedge around three sides.

'Do you look after all this?'

'Yes,' he said. We went to the back door, he opened it and called, 'It's only me.'

I nudged him with my elbow, 'What about me?' I whispered.

'Come in, come in, I'm in the kitchen,' called a voice.

Well at least she sounded sane. She didn't come out to greet us. I wondered whether she was perhaps in a wheelchair, and he hadn't liked to mention it. Tom went into the kitchen first, and turned to me.

'Mum, this is Shirley.' Shirley, meet my mother.'

'How do you do,' we both said.

*

Part 2 of Shirley's story will appear next.

© Shirley Henwood